JURNAL TEKNIK INDUSTRI VOL. 5, NO.

1, JUNI 2003: 32 - 40

CASE STUDIES OF USE OF DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS

IN MATERIAL RESEARCH
Salil Kumar Roy
Postgraduate Program in Civil Engineering, Petra Christian University

I Nyoman Sutapa
Department of Industrial Engineering, Petra Christian University

ABSTRACT
The paper describes principles of factorial and fractional factorial design of experiments. The
various ways of analysing data obtained by these procedures are shown via four case studies.
Yates method was followed in case 1 where the effect of anode type, carbon content of steel,
temperature, and agitation on cathodic protection of steel in seawater, on current density, was
studied. In case 2, a glass was formulated within 10 constituante melted, quantity water and tested
for flow caracteristics, from the result the factor effect was calculated. In case 3, analysis of results
is done in a very simple way. In this case, the effect of carbon content, surface condition,
temperature, and agitation on the corrosion of steel in seawater was studied. In case 4, the effect of
eleven constituents on acid resistance of a cast iron enamel has been studied through sixteen
experimental compositions. This case gives a method to find out which of the sixteen experimental
compositions is nearest to a target value.
Keywords : statistical design of experiment, material research.

1. INTRODUCTION
Design of experiments is an advanced statistical tool to study efficiently the effect of
a large number of variables with a minimum effort in data collection. The general
framework of the design is shown below in Table 1. The inputs and outputs are described
as factors and responses and the experimental settings of the factors are designed with
orthogonal arrays; statistical means are available for analysis of the response data. This
method can give maximum amount of information with a given amount of experimental
data, in other words, a certain amount of information can be obtained through a number
of experiments.
2. BASIC THEORY
The simplest method of experimental design is the one dimensional search i.e. one
parameter fixed at a time. This method, which is time consuming and not very efficient, is
now gradually being replaced by factorial design methodology introduced by Fiscer
(1960). A factorial experiment is one in which the effects of a number of different factors
are investigated simultaneously, rather than conducting a series of single factor
experiments. The theory and application of factorial design methodology and also some
other design approaches can be found in books and articles (Cochran, et al., 1957, Box, et
al., 1978, Kempthorn, 1979). One of the well known fractional factorial design
32

Jurusan Teknik Industri, Fakultas Teknologi Industri, Universitas Kristen Petra

http://puslit.petra.ac.id/journals/industrial

CASE STUDIES OF USE OF DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS IN MATERIAL RESEARCH (Salil Kumar Roy)

approaches is the orthogonal array design. Taguchi, a Japanese engineer who has been
active in the quality improvement of Japans industrial products and processes since the
late 1940s, has developed both a philosophy and methodology based on orthogonal
arrays, essentially highly fractionlised factorial design (Sons, 1988).
A L16(24 ) orthogonal array indicates a total of 16 experiments designed with four
factors each at two level of settings. The experimental conditions for this array is
illustrated in Table 1. The - and + indicate the low and high settings of each factor
i.e. A, B, C, D. The treatment combination indicates the main effect or interactions
among the four factors. Thus, for:
Null effect, having all n factor at low levels.
Main effect, having only one factor at high level all others low i.e. A only high; B only
high; etc.
2-factor interactions; having two factors at a time high, all others low, i.e. A and B
high; A and C high; B and C high; etc.
3-factor interactions; having three factors at a time high, all others low, i.e. A, B and C
high; A, C and D high; A, B and D high; etc and so on, up to,
n-factor interactions where all n factors are at high level.
In case study 1, the four factor for cathodic protection of steel evaluated, are listed
in Table 2. In order to measure all the interactions among these four factors for a two
level factorial experiment, the L16 (24 ) array was chosen. In this case the response
measured was current density (mA/m2 ).
The response can be analysed for statistical significance by various methods (Davis,
1978). The F-test is very common and widely used. A convenient technique to find the Fvalues was formulated by Yates (1937). The step-by-step numerical procedure is
schematically indicated in Table 3, in which P and Q are the two sets of replicate test
values; R is their sum; S, T and U are intermediate steps in the computation of the total
effects V; and W is the sum of squares, from which the F-values are calculated as:
Wi
Fi =
(1)
EMS
In equation (1), EMS is the error mean square, obtained as follows:
( R )2
C= i
(2)
32
SST = Pi 2 + Qi C

(3)

SSTR = 0.5( Ri )2 C

(4)

SSR =

( Pi )2 + ( Qi )2
C
16

SSE = SST SSTR SSR

EMS =

SSE
15

Jurusan Teknik Industri, Fakultas Teknologi Industri, Universitas Kristen Petra

http://puslit.petra.ac.id/journals/industrial

(5)
(6)
(7)

33

JURNAL TEKNIK INDUSTRI VOL. 5, NO. 1, JUNI 2003: 32 - 40

The F-values are then checked againts F-Distribution Tables for various levels of
significance for different combinations of the degrees of freedom of the two-variables
concerned at a time. For the 24 factorial design, the degree of freedom V1 and V2 are 1
and 15 respectively, and levels of significance are known to be as follows:
If F-values is less than:
1.43
3.07
4.54
8.68

The effect is significant for:

Upper 25%
Upper 10%
Upper 5%
Upper 1%

The larger the F-value, the smaller is the level and hence stronger is the significance.
Usually the upper 5% and 1% levels are considered sufficiently strong in significance in
scientific investigations.
3. CASE STUDIES OF USE OF DESIGN OF EXPERIMENT
3.1 Case Study 1
Factorial experiments were done to study the effects of four factors (anode type,
carbon content of steel, temperature, and agitation) and all the interactions among these
four factors for each factor at two levels (Zn/Al for anode type, 0.06%/0.43% for carbon
content of steel, 200 C/32 0C for temperature, and no/yes for agitation) (Ho, 1987). The
response measured was current density (mA/m2 ). The data for the 16 duplicate specimens
for the current density measured, the results and the computed F-values are listed in Table 4.
The factors and interactions that are significant at various levels are grouped and
shown in Table 5.
3.2 Case Study 2
Sixteen samples were obtained with factor combinations set according to Table 6.
After melting and quenching in water they were tested for flow. Measured of flow is
analysed with reference to every single additive (factor). The average of the first eight
measurements reflects the response level when factor TiO2 is at higher level, y1 ,
y 1 = (1546 + 1545 + + 1600 ) 8 = 1576 .5

and the average response when factor TiO2 is at lower, y 2 ,

y 2 = (1558 + 1550 + L + 1498 8 = 1489 .9 .

Thus the effect of raising the level of factor TiO2 from lower to higher is an increase in
the response amounting to y 1 y 2 = 91.6 . Similar calculations are carried out for each
of the other factors B2O3, Na 2 O, , Na 2SiF6 , and the result are shown in Table 7.
3.3 Case Study 3
This case shows how analysis of results can be done in a much simpler way (Ho and
Roy, 1994). The corrosion of steel in tropical sea water was studied in this case. The
34

Jurusan Teknik Industri, Fakultas Teknologi Industri, Universitas Kristen Petra

http://puslit.petra.ac.id/journals/industrial

CASE STUDIES OF USE OF DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS IN MATERIAL RESEARCH (Salil Kumar Roy)

effects of carbon content, surface condition, temperature, and agitation on the corrosion
of steel in sea water were studied under laboratory conditions. Each of the four factors
was studied at two levels: carbon content (0.06/0.43 wt-%), surface preparation method
(dry blasted/wet blasted), temperature (20/300 C), and agitation (with/without). The
corrosion rates of the 16 pairs of samples studied in the laboratory are given in Table 8.
The effect of agitation on corrosion based on the differences in the average corrosion
rates obtained from these experiments in which the agitation changes and other condition
are the same, is given in Table 9. It can be seen from Table 9 that agitation increased the
rate usually by 70-100%, the effect being greater for the dry blasted specimens and
particularly small for wet blasted specimens at the higher temperature.
3.4 Case Study 4
In this case, a method has been sugested to find out which of the sixteen samples is
nearest to a target (Roy, 1985). Acid resistence of sixteen cast iron enamel each having
Al2 O3 , CaF2 , BaO, ZrO2 , PbO, B2 O3 , TiO2 , Li2 O, CaO, Na2O, and SiO 2 have been studied
using a special design of composition. Following the design sixteen oxide compositions
were calculated. The oxide compositions were then converted into batch composition.
The sixteen batches were weighed and each melted in a fireclay crucible in an electric
furnace. The molten mass was poured in cold water. The frit was then ground in a ball
mill sieved and the powdered enamel was used to determine its acid resistance. The
sixteen experimental compositions are shown in Table 10 and the results of acid
resistance are also shown in that table. The target value was set as 30 for weight loss. The
deviation from target was calculated and is given in the same table. A scheme was set to
calculate a penalty value from each value of deviation from target. For deviation of 30,
70, 100, and 1000 the penalties were set as 1, 2, 3, and 4. The calculated penalties for
each of the sixteen compositions can be seen in Table 10. Sample no. 7 has the lowest
penalty value and hence is nearest to the target.
4. CONCLUDING REMARKS
The statistical design of experiments is found very useful in material research.
The data obtained from statistical design of experiments can be analysed by Yates
method (case 1).
The statistical design of experiments offer means to find out the effect of factors in
such a way that even non-statistician can be use it (case 2 and 3).
Development of materials with target properties can be done effectively by use of
statistical design of experiments (case 4).
REFERENCES
Fisher, R.A., 1960. The Design of Experiments, 7th Ed., Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh.
Cochran, W.G., and G.M. Cox, 1957. Experimental Design, John Wiley & Sons, New
York.

Jurusan Teknik Industri, Fakultas Teknologi Industri, Universitas Kristen Petra

http://puslit.petra.ac.id/journals/industrial

35

JURNAL TEKNIK INDUSTRI VOL. 5, NO. 1, JUNI 2003: 32 - 40

Box, G.E.P., W.G. Muster, and J.S. Hunter, 1978. Statistics for Experiments, John Wiley
& Sons, New York.
Kempthorn, O., 1979. The Design and Analysis of Experiments, R.E. Krieger Pub. Co.,
Huntington, New York.
Sons, R.J., 1988. Taguchi Techniques for Quality Engineering, Mc Graw-Hill.
Taguchi, G. System of Experimental Design, Kraus Int. Pub., New York.
Davis, O.L., 1978. Design and Analysis of Industrial Experiments, 2nd Ed., Longman.
Yates, F., 1937. Design and Analysis of Factorial Experiments, Imperial Bureau of Soil
Sciences, Harpenden, England.
Ho, K.H., 1987. Study of Corrosion of Steel in Sea Water, M.Sc Thesis, Dept. of
Mechanical Engg., National University of Singapore.
Ho, K.H., and S.K. Roy, 1994. Corrosion of Steel in Tropical Sea Water, British
Corrosion Journal, Vol. 29 No. 3.
Roy, S.K., 1985. Experimental Design Approach to Enamel Formulation, Journal of
Indian Ceramics, India.

36

Jurusan Teknik Industri, Fakultas Teknologi Industri, Universitas Kristen Petra

http://puslit.petra.ac.id/journals/industrial

CASE STUDIES OF USE OF DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS IN MATERIAL RESEARCH (Salil Kumar Roy)

APPENDIX
Table 1. Experimental Condition for 24 Factorial Design
No.

Treatment
Combination

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

1
a
b
ab
c
ac
bc
abc
d
ad
bd
abd
cd
acd
bcd
abcd

Experimental Conditions
A
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
-

B
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

C
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

D
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

Table 2. Factors and Levels in The Laboratory Investigation on Cathodic Protection

of Steel in Seawater by Sacrificial Anodes
Designation
A
B
C
D

Factor
Anode type
Carbon content
Temperature
Agitation

- Level (Low or 1)
Zn
0.06%
200 C
No

+ Level (High or 2)
Al
0.43%
320 C
Yes

Table 3. Determination of F-Values for 24 Factorial Design of Experiment

Jurusan Teknik Industri, Fakultas Teknologi Industri, Universitas Kristen Petra

http://puslit.petra.ac.id/journals/industrial

37

JURNAL TEKNIK INDUSTRI VOL. 5, NO. 1, JUNI 2003: 32 - 40

Table 4. Result and F-values

Table 5. Levels of Significance for Various Factors and Interactions

Response
Current
Density

Significant at 1% Level
(F >8.68)
A, B, C, AB, AC, BD, CD,
ABC, ABD, BCD, ABCD

Significant at 5% Level
(F=4.54 to 8.68)
ACD

Significant at 10% Level

(F=3.07 to 4.54)
AD

Table 6. Composition of Sixteen Glasses and Their Properties

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

38

TiO2

B2 O3

12.4
12.4
12.4
12.4
12.4
12.4
12.4
12.4
8.4
8.4
8.4
8.4
8.4
8.4
8.4
8.4

3.7
3.7
3.7
3.7
2.7
2.7
2.7
2.7
3.7
3.7
3.7
3.7
2.7
2.7
2.7
2.7

Na2 O ZnO
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
9.3
9.3
9.3
9.3
9.3
9.3
9.3
9.3
11.3
11.3
11.3
11.3

0.8
0.8
0.0
0.0
0.8
0.8
0.0
0.0
0.8
0.8
0.0
0.0
0.8
0.8
0.0
0.0

Li2 O Al 2 O3
1.6
1.6
0.7
0.7
1.6
1.6
0.7
0.7
0.7
0.7
1.6
1.6
0.7
0.7
1.6
1.6

5.7
5.7
4.7
4.7
4.7
4.7
5.7
5.7
5.7
5.7
4.7
4.7
4.7
4.7
5.7
5.7

PbO

CaO

CaF2

Na2 SiF6

11.6
9.6
11.6
9.6
11.6
9.6
11.6
9.6
11.6
9.6
11.6
9.6
11.6
9.6
11.6
9.6

0.8
0.0
0.8
0.0
0.8
0.0
0.8
0.0
0.0
0.8
0.0
0.8
0.0
0.8
0.0
0.8

5.5
4.5
5.5
4.5
4.5
5.5
4.5
5.5
5.5
4.5
5.5
4.5
4.5
5.5
4.5
5.5

10.2
7.0
7.0
10.2
10.2
7.0
7.0
10.2
10.2
7.0
7.0
10.2
10.2
7.0
7.0
10.2

Opacity
(%)
99.5
100.0
91.0
82.5
97.0
96.0
100.0
97.0
92.5
84.0
80.5
84.0
89.0
71.5
77.5
88.0

Jurusan Teknik Industri, Fakultas Teknologi Industri, Universitas Kristen Petra

http://puslit.petra.ac.id/journals/industrial

CASE STUDIES OF USE OF DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS IN MATERIAL RESEARCH (Salil Kumar Roy)

Table 7. Summary of Factor Effects on Flow

Additive
Flow

TiO2
91.6

B2 O3
19.9

Na2 O ZnO
-66.9 -15.1

Li2 O Al 2 O3
7.6
33.4

PbO
3.4

CaO
12.6

CaF2
6.4

Na2 SiF6
0.1

Table 8. Results of Corrosion of Steel in Sea Water (Laboratory Test)

Table 9. The Effect of Agitation on Corrosion Rate

Experiment
At 200 C
1-9
3-11
2-10
4-12
At 320 C
5-13
7-15
6-14
8-16

Condition

Change in Corrosion Rate (%)

Dry blasted, 0.06%C

Wet blasted, 0.06%C
Dry blasted, 0.43%C
Wet blasted, 0.43%C

+70.6
+26.9
+118.6
+71.8

Dry blasted, 0.06%C

Wet blasted, 0.06%C
Dry blasted, 0.43%C
Wet blasted, 0.43%C

+74.8
+15.4
+54.0
+10.0

Jurusan Teknik Industri, Fakultas Teknologi Industri, Universitas Kristen Petra

http://puslit.petra.ac.id/journals/industrial

39

JURNAL TEKNIK INDUSTRI VOL. 5, NO. 1, JUNI 2003: 32 - 40

Table 10. Composition of the Sixteen Enamels, Weight Loss Due to Acid, Deviation
from Target, and Penalty for Deviation

40

Jurusan Teknik Industri, Fakultas Teknologi Industri, Universitas Kristen Petra

http://puslit.petra.ac.id/journals/industrial